More than one million people get sick each year from infections they contract in hospitals. This has resulted in as many as 100,000 deaths. Fighting these infections costs the healthcare system about $30 billion dollars every year. These statistics are just for hospitals in America. The number of people affected and costs worldwide are considerably greater.
Significant advances have been and are continuing to be made in the field of medical technology. An important and invaluable medical tool to health care providers including doctors, nurses and technicians and which is used in connection with and has lead to such advances is a stethoscope having a head or chest portion. Care givers routinely use stethoscopes to facilitate a patient's medical care by examining the chest, abdomen, and other areas of the patient. Patients in hospitals and related medical facilities often require a greater extent of medical care such as surgery and related invasive procedures which can often leave open wounds. The bodily fluids secreted from such open wounds may be contaminated with infectious agents, including viruses such as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) thereby resulting in possible contamination of the head portion of the stethoscope.
Multiple types of stethoscopes are commonly used by care givers or health care providers. A care giver can use an inexpensive stethoscope that is typically disposed of after each use such as in intensive care units (ICU's and the like) or ward where VRE (Vancomycia Resistant Enterococcus) or MRSA (Methacillia Resistent Staph, Aureus) and related infections are commonly located. Such disposable stethoscopes, however are usually ill fitting to the care giver, poor quality, and often inadequate for detecting subtle human abnormalities. Electronic stethoscopes are also known in the art. Moreover, most physicians and nurses prefer to use their own individual stethoscope. As used herein and throughout, the term or phrase “stethoscope” is intended to include all such types of instruments used to detect and study sounds produced in a body.
A risk of spreading infections with a stethoscope exists because of its routine use by health care providers throughout the day on multiple patients. Although care givers work with only the best intentions of the patient as their paramount concern, often times and whether by inadvertence or laziness, a care giver will use a stethoscope on one person/patient and, then, reuse the same stethoscope without specific cleaning and sanitation measures being effected between patients. To inhibit the spread of infection, some care givers will wipe the head portion of the stethoscope with an alcohol swab between patients. Such cursory cleaning and sanitization efforts, however, are often inadequate to completely destroy infectious contaminants on the diaphragm of a stethoscope and are often infrequently used between persons/patients. Also, the design of some stethoscopes makes effective wiping of the head or chest portion thereof difficult.
As will be appreciated, medical emergencies only serve to exacerbate these problems. Often times, care givers simply do not have the time necessary and required to adequately clean and sanitize the head or chest portion of their stethoscope between persons/patients. Moreover, and during rounds, doctors are required to frequently pass from one patient's room to another and yet are expected to have enough time to thoroughly and carefully examine each patient. Reusing the stethoscope without sufficient and cleaning and sanitization care being provided thereto often results in the inadvertent but yet positive transference of nosocomial infection or cross contamination between persons/patients.
Thus, there is a need and continuing desire for a system and related method for monitoring cleaning and sanitization efforts of health care givers/providers using stethoscopes.